In all probability today's meeting of Alitalia will approve the recapitalization proposal need entry into the capital of a public shareholder such as Poste Italiane, but it will hardly be able to defuse the three mines which undermine the path of the airline and make its future very problematic. The thorns on which Alitalia moves are the understandable coldness of the AirFrance-KLM partner, the unresolved revenue emergency and the unsustainable debt burden. And they are thorns that make Alitalia's new bet a real blind bet.
The coldness of the French it was not born today but is the direct consequence of the failed solution to the problems associated with the insufficient dynamics of revenues, the inadequate industrial strategy and the failed restructuring of the Italian company's debt. As its representatives have already done in the last Alitalia Board of Directors, it is probable that Air France will approve the proposed capital increase in the meeting to guarantee the solvency of the company, but that it will not then open its portfolio and participate directly to a recapitalization that he sees as a buffer solution and not as a vehicle for finally designing a stable future for Alitalia as the third leg of the Franco-Dutch group now made up of Air France and KLM.
If this were the case, i.e. if Air France-KLM, seeing no progress in Alitalia in terms of market strategy, profitability and debt restructuring, did not participate in the capital increase, not only would the current and future operational synergies between the two groups but a gigantic question would arise about the very future of the alliance. On this point we cannot joke, because Alitalia's foreign partners are not interchangeable and a possible breaking of the agreements in force between the Italian company and the Air France-KLM group would have considerable costs and would leave Alitalia in isolation before the time required to research and implement an alternative alliance.
The Minister of Transport, Maurizio Lupi, rightly maintained that Alitalia should not be the Cinderella of the alliance with the French and the Dutch, but the role, important or marginal, of the Italian company in the international network does not depend on the partners but by Alitalia itself: if it fully deals with the problems at hand, it will acquire greater bargaining power, otherwise it will condemn itself to decline.
Therefore revenue and debt: here are the emergencies in respect of which it would be criminal for Alitalia to hide its head in the sand. With the extraordinary help of the State, which forcefully entered the field in 2008, both shouldering the economic and social costs of the restructuring of the "patriots" and favoring the absorption of the main national airline competitor (Air One), Alitalia has attacked the problems of costs. But that of revenues remains unresolved, which has exploded now but which was evident in recent years and which only a realistic industrial plan can begin to address, even if - it is good to say it immediately - it will not be painless, as can be clearly seen in France.
Then there is the debt emergency which, after the cleanup in 2008, has started to rise again in a worrying way due to the Italian company's lack of ability to generate profits. The legal tools to deal with the necessary and undeferrable debt restructuring are there. It's time to use them if you don't want to sell illusions by throwing away the Italians' money once again.
